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Checking the Chamber


RPatton

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I see a LOT of shooters 'make ready' by inserting a mag, racking the slide, and then pulling the slide back enough to make sure that a round is in the chamber. Has any one ever NOT seen a bullet in the chamber?

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Press checks are just something that has been around for a long time. Any gun handling course I have taken involves doing a press check at some point and so it becomes ingrained.

To answer your question though, yes, a shooter at a class was having feeding problem with a specific mag, when I loaded the mag, racked the slide and did a press check the chamber was empty. His mag was the problem as the follower was nose diving.

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It's also good to have a pre stage routine to keep from things like that happening. I have seen, with some frequency, people make ready, forget to rack the slide all together, start the stage, then realize there was nothing in the tube. It wastes a few seconds, and screws with your head for the rest of the stage...

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I see a LOT of shooters 'make ready' by inserting a mag, racking the slide, and then pulling the slide back enough to make sure that a round is in the chamber. Has any one ever NOT seen a bullet in the chamber?

I've seen a good number of people (usually newbies) think they racked in a round and end up starting the stage with an empty gun instead. I can usually tell from the sound. Half the time the mag then falls out on the draw.

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It happens to me occasionally. Happened at a club match over the summer and it just happened recently in practice last week. I think it was a mag issue rather than short stroking the slide at make ready.

Regardless, I press check every time now.

Edited by d_striker
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I've seen it many times, and it has happened to me more than once which why I always press check now. As others have pointed out it is pretty much always mag related, most frequently a result of simply not seating the magazine all the way.

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When I shot ss I used a mag with only 1 round in it to load. Shooting production I can feel the round being stripped and going in. As a RO I see too much screwing arround with press checks, safeties going on and off, guns being holstered, unholstered, mags being topped off, all this unnecessary screwing arround. Just lamr and shoot.

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I've never had to worry about a press check. Open cylinder drop in moon clip and presto, rounds in all chambers. Now if I put a moon clip in with no rounds loaded on the clip I should not be allowed to own a gun. ?

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A press check as a matter of habit is a good thing. Think daily carry, not just competition.

Before you put that gun in the holster for the day's activities, it would be foolish to not take just a second to perform a press check. Just practice the press check at matches, to reinforce it.

It's one thing to fail to chamber a carrtrdge and hear a "CLICK" instead of a "BANG" when the buzzer sounds. It's quite a another thing to hear that same "CLICK" when your life is depending on the "BANG".

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A press check as a matter of habit is a good thing. Think daily carry, not just competition.

Before you put that gun in the holster for the day's activities, it would be foolish to not take just a second to perform a press check. Just practice the press check at matches, to reinforce it.

It's one thing to fail to chamber a carrtrdge and hear a "CLICK" instead of a "BANG" when the buzzer sounds. It's quite a another thing to hear that same "CLICK" when your life is depending on the "BANG".

I think manipulating your daily carry gun every day is an unnecessary risk. Fortunately most guns come with loaded chamber indicators because lawyers and the gun companies learned the same thing.

I do a press check on the line to make sure my gun's loaded, but I'm certainly not going to pull my gun from its holster every day to check it.

I use a holster that I can put on and take off without having access to the trigger. Safety first!

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^ Kind of surprising you shoot competitively with that sort of attitude towards firearms. There's a lot of us whose daily grind is exponentially more dangerous than manipulating a loaded gun. The reason we are alive and still attached to our arms and legs is because we understand that any handling of a potentially dangerous tool requires focus on the task at hand, no matter how familiar we are with it. Loaded firearms, when treated with the same respect, are considerably less dangerous than driving on a highway full of distracted texting motorists, and we still all do that everyday.

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I see a LOT of shooters 'make ready' by inserting a mag, racking the slide, and then pulling the slide back enough to make sure that a round is in the chamber. Has any one ever NOT seen a bullet in the chamber?

It's happened to me a few times, especially in multi-string stages. That's why I press check now.

To me, it's no different than checking that a gun is clear even though you "know" it is.

Edited by FTDMFR
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I think the people that this happens to often need to change

Something. shouldn't happen often that you try to rack in a round and fail to do so.

It's one thing to double check as a routine but it shouldn't be necessary.

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I carry a gun for a living

Every time I holster a firearm I eject the mag to ensure it's fully loaded, reinsert the mag till it locks in, then I tug on it to ensure its locked in, then I press check

This takes maybe all of 5 seconds

The only difference At LAMR, is I insert a mag, rack the 1st round in then replace it with a fully loaded one then do the rest this also takes all of 5 seconds

I'd rather take the extra couple of second to check then have a oh shit moment

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I didn't even know this process had a name. Press check? Did someone just make that up? It seems like an insecure thing to do, like there is some need to make sure that the gun is actually functioning as it was designed. The slide goes back and forth, a round goes in the chamber. Why does one need to question that this most basic operation isn't working? Now, if you suspect a problem, then fine, check it (I still dont see where this is a 'press'), but to do it everytime seems paranoid.

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^ Kind of surprising you shoot competitively with that sort of attitude towards firearms. There's a lot of us whose daily grind is exponentially more dangerous than manipulating a loaded gun. The reason we are alive and still attached to our arms and legs is because we understand that any handling of a potentially dangerous tool requires focus on the task at hand, no matter how familiar we are with it. Loaded firearms, when treated with the same respect, are considerably less dangerous than driving on a highway full of distracted texting motorists, and we still all do that everyday.

Human error is real. There is nothing wrong with minimizing it. I have carried a gun every day for a long time.

If your daily activities are more dangerous than unnecessarily manipulating a loaded gun, I genuinely feel sorry for you! An unintended discharge that strikes you could create lifelong and life-changing injuries, and you risk that EVERY time you handle a loaded gun, even if you do so responsibly. If it was necessary for me to manipulate my guns every day, then I would do it. But when I can put my carry gun on without having to worry about that and keep it safely in the holster, that's what I'm going to do.

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Each to his own. But don't feel sorry for me, every time I've started a job that didn't legitimately try to kill or dismember me twice before lunch I've begun preparing my two weeks notice speech. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Edited by TonytheTiger
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TaterHead said: "I didn't even know this process had a name. Press check? Did someone just make that up? It seems like an insecure thing to do, like there is some need to make sure that the gun is actually functioning as it was designed".

I learned at Gunsite in March 1981. Taught by two guys, who were my instructors . . . . . Jeff Cooper and Clint Smith.

That used to mean something at one time to a lot of people. Still does to me, so I press check, as I was taught.

As Tony the Tiger said: To each his own.

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